


I'm Your Fan

by MissEllaVation



Category: U2
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-05-21
Updated: 2017-05-21
Packaged: 2018-11-03 09:27:02
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,349
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10964406
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MissEllaVation/pseuds/MissEllaVation
Summary: In which our heroes take a day off and figure a few things out.





	I'm Your Fan

**Author's Note:**

> This is plotless self-indulgence. I’m still trying to figure out who B and E really are in my little universe. And I’m still trying to learn to write about sex without it reading like a set of Ikea instructions. I may have erred a bit in the other direction. Chronologically, this could have been another chapter of [Unity](http://archiveofourown.org/works/9896084/chapters/22183868), but that didn’t feel right to me. The Berlin sessions are over, everyone’s back in Dublin, and the mood is just different.
> 
> No one will be surprised to learn that I found my last two (G-rated) fics much quicker and easier easier to write than this one. Teenage Bono in particular felt very real to me. Early 90’s Bono is a little harder to pin down. Unless you’re Edge. (Heeyyyohhh!) The poems referred to/misquoted here are “Comin’ Thro’ the Rye” by Robert Burns, “Johnny” by W.H. Auden, and “Mad Girl’s Love Song” by Sylvia Plath. 
> 
> Thanks to all the usual suspects for their own writing and for their inspiration. And thanks to anyone who reads this. I love you all and appreciate you so much, and you know, this whole fic thing might just be about putting more love out there into the world. It’s important, maybe. But of course none of this ever happened…as far as we know.

Reports of our misbehavior were greatly exaggerated, yet I can’t deny that we were both being difficult.

Artistic differences? Never. The record was almost finished. It’s still hard for me to say that, because nothing ever really feels finished, does it? But by any reasonable standard, the songs were done. And they were good. We all knew they were good. We were excited about how good they were.

At the same time, we were a little scared. Because no matter how hard we threw ourselves at the zeitgeist, we always ended up sounding like ourselves. Still very earnest, regardless of what Bono thought. Even our irony sounded earnest. We had been lucky so far, but what if the public rejected this record? What if it didn’t want to hear us using loops, and putting odd little fanfares at the beginnings of the songs, and singing (earnestly) about oral sex? Was it too late for us to become engineers or English teachers?

All right Edge, that’s enough. Yes, taking an artistic risk is scary, but the people want to know: In what way were you and Bono being difficult?

Well.

I suppose you could say we were being extreme versions of our normal selves. Enacting our Platonic Forms. Driving everyone round the bend in the process.

Me: Got quiet. Spoke not a word to anyone beyond “yes” and “no.” Larry asked me why the fuck I was so dour. Brian called me “saturnine.” And Adam accused me of glaring at him. I would _never_ glare at Adam. I was only looking at him because he was sitting next to Bono, and I was trying not to look at Bono. I had my reasons for this, but I could not give them voice. So I just didn’t speak.

Bono: Got loud. Of course. For similar reasons, I think. I hope. Well, I suppose I know. In any case, he couldn’t shut up for more than thirty seconds, leaving no perceived musical flaw, no matter how minuscule, uncommented-upon. “Officious budgie,” Larry muttered, when Bono finally left the room for a pee. To which Brian added, “he is rather more voluble than usual.”

Then Brian turned to me. “Edge, I might just send the both of you to Coventry.”

Which meant suggesting, gently, that if we were really that uptight about the new record, we should spend the rest of Thursday down the pub, and not return until we were fit for human/Eno company.

Bono naturally took offense at this, but he was out of the studio like a shot before I could even stand up.

*

I followed him into the cramped corridor that led to the car-park. Amid the bulky shapes of spare amps and drums, the cables tangled like vines underfoot, I reached for him, pulled him back against my chest, and held him there with one arm while my other hand searched his body for an ideal place to land. He didn’t offer any resistance.

“If a body meet a body comin’ thro’ the rye,” I whispered, my breath stirring his hair.

“Edge, you gobshite.” He leaned back against me, his head lolling on my shoulder. “Not a word for three days, and now suddenly you’re Robbie Burns. What do you think you’re doing?”

“This.” I slipped my free hand into the front pocket of his jeans.

“Wallet’s ‘round the back.”

“Funny. Listen. I want you. I can’t take this anymore. Since we’ve been home, we haven’t been alone. Not for a minute.”

(NB: This was the root cause of our bad behavior in the studio. Nothing more, nothing less.)

“I know.” He stroked my forearm with warm fingertips. “I’ve missed you.”

I tried to pull him even closer to me. Kept my hand in his pocket, just feeling the heat of him, listening to him purr—because he does purr, in a way, when he’s happy. Breathing in the clean scent of his hair, the back of his neck. 

“So what are we going to do about this situation, love?”

I wasn’t sure whether he meant that afternoon or for the next twenty-five years, but I thought it best to stay in the here-and-now. “What if we get in my car and go to my lonely little house? You’re not expected anywhere, are you?”

“No. Well, you know. Not until much later.”

I chose not to dwell on that.

*

My neighborhood was dead quiet, all the good citizens away at work or school. Lucky thing, because I dropped my keys twice and nearly kicked the door off its hinges, and a sharp-eyed neighbor might have been moved to call the Garda on the miscreant breaking into that lovely guest-house across the street.

In the front hallway, I shoved Bono against the wall. Unusual behavior for me, but in keeping with the last few days. Dour, saturnine, and now brutish too. I know I was saying something, words, probably in English, but I have no idea what they were. He was so warm, so solid and real, clinging to my neck, breathing little cascades of _oh_ and _Edge_ in my ear, twisting one small but formidable leg around mine.

I drew back to look at him, at the strange peaks and valleys that make up the face I’m in love with. His eyes were bright, a little teary. His lips parted. Giving in to an urge I’d had since we were both kids, I laid my fingertip in the cleft of his chin. His chin, my finger—they had a date with destiny.

“Still not talking, Edge?”

“No. No talk. Kiss.” I put my mouth to his throat. Holding him against the wall, but more gently now. I could feel his pulse under my lips, my teeth.

“Dread Pirate Edge.” Bono was the only person on the whole of planet earth who appreciated my bandanas and my worrisome hair. I’d put off cutting it because he liked to play with it. In fact he liked to pull it hard, as he was doing now. How could I deny either of us the pleasure?

I unbuttoned his shirt—he’d only done up two of the buttons anyway—and rested my forehead in the soft nest of dark hair above his heart.

“Edge.”

“Bono.”

“Edge, this is very important. I want you to listen carefully.”

“Okay.” I leaned back again to look at him. Very serious—the furrowed brow of doom. I suddenly felt afraid. Afraid he was having a change of heart, afraid he would go home, or back to the studio, and leave me here alone.

“Are you listening to me, The Edge?”

“Yes, of course.” My heart was racing; it seemed to have grown huge and filled my entire body. “What’s wrong?”

“Nothing’s wrong.” He stretched up a bit on his toes and brought his lips close to my ear. “I just want to give you fair warning, Edge, that I intend to suck your cock now.”

I believe I made an incoherent sound.

Bono somehow got my belt buckle opened with one hand, and then the top button of my jeans, never taking his lips away from my ear. “Because your cock is gorgeous, Edge. So hard and gorgeous, and I haven’t seen it for ages, and I want it.”

My turn to be pushed against the wall. Bono slid down the length of my body with excruciating slowness, teasing me with his bare chest, his neck, his cheek, his hair, until he was on his knees before me, his hands gripping my thighs lightly, then firmly. “I’ve missed you so much, Edge.”

“Sweetheart. You. So much.”

_I don’t deserve this, Bono, my angel. I’m an awful person. I’m dour and saturnine and apparently I glare at people… and you are so good, and everything about you is honey and sunlight and silk, God, every bit of you feels just like silk, do you know that? Your mouth, your lips… And I’m so sorry that the front hall has no carpeting, only the fucking hardwood floor… and you, my poor darling down there on your knees, I hope it doesn’t hurt you but please if you could just keep doing that, oh, just like that… and if you don’t mind me pushing back your beautiful black hair… and staring at your beautiful face, and your mouth, your mouth, your gorgeous mouth…_

“You’re so lovely. You’re so lovely, Bono.”

_There, I made you smile. I felt it. The shape of your mouth changed, just for a second, and I could feel it. I wonder if anyone else has felt your mouth move in just that way, a little smile around their cock, if some other man, some friend—It doesn’t matter. I’ll watch the sunlight coming through the colored glass in the door, lighting up your hair from behind like a halo, my angel. Stroke your eyebrow with my thumb because that one stray hair is moving me to tears. And every time I make a sound you answer with a little sound of pleasure, oh, I hope it’s pleasure for you, you’re so warm and good to me, and I promise I’ll come soon so I can take care of you, yes, just touch me like that just like that please I love you oh I love you—_

“—I love you, Bono. God, I love you.”

I never meant to say it, but I could never stop myself. I’m not even sure why I wanted to stop myself, any more than I’m sure about how I ended up on the floor, shaking, shaken, cradling him in my arms.

*

“Sweetheart, I’m so sorry. Let’s get off this cold floor.”

“It’s all right, Edge,” he murmured into my shoulder. “It was my idea, after all.”

“True. Well in that case—”

“In that case, nothing! Take me to your bed, you savage.”

“Right.”

We rose to our feet, quite unsteadily in my case. I offered Bono my hand. Then I tried to lift him up, like a bride on her wedding night. I couldn’t manage it. Hilarity ensued.

“Never mind, just get me something to drink.” Bono stalked off toward the bedroom. “Honestly, the service around here leaves a lot to be desired.”

Still laughing, I clumped into the kitchen. A brute, my belt hanging open and jangling. I was so happy to have Bono here that I would have gladly cooked him an elaborate ten-course meal, but of course I didn’t want to leave him waiting. So I grabbed the fruit bowl from the table, and bottles of white wine and San Pellegrino from the fridge, and carried them carefully to the bedroom. Amazed that nothing fell and shattered on the floor.

Bono sat on the edge of my bed, shirtless and smiling, kicking his feet a little. Hair tucked behind his ears. How he could melt me, right down to a simple syrup. He took the San Pellegrino from me and had a swig.

I put the wine on the bedside table—he’d want it sooner or later—then sat down on the floor, at his feet, and held the fruit bowl out like an offering. “You’ll want to keep your strength up.”

Arched brow. “Will I?”

He chose a ripe peach that had been flown in from some warmer part of the planet. The sun shone through the blinds, striping his shoulders and chest with gold. A peach eating a peach. I wished I could paint. No, I wished my camera weren’t packed up in a box somewhere.

“You’ve a nice selection of citrus there as well,” he said, eyeing the fruit bowl in my lap.

“Of course. A pirate like me can’t afford to get scurvy. Take an orange.”

“Maybe I will. In a little while.” Bono overhanded the peach-stone across the bedroom, right into the wastebasket.

“Impressive.”

He winked. “I never miss.”

I set the bowl on the floor and got up onto my knees. Placed myself between Bono’s legs. Took his hand and licked the peach juice from his fingers, slowly, one by one.

“Oh Edge… you little passion-flower.” He stroked my face with wet fingers. “Why are you so pretty? So perfect. Get on this bed with me. Touch me. Kiss me.”

I was dizzy with wanting him, almost as if the episode in the front hall had never happened, so I’m not sure why I did what I did next. Maybe only to prove that I could be unpredictable. That I could be something other than a lovesick pirate, a reliable side-man, a maths nerd twiddling studio knobs. “Alright sweetheart, but wait a minute. Stay right where you are, okay? Just like that.”

“If I must?”

“You must.”

Then I lay down on the floor, flat on my back, and just gazed up at him, at the underside of that aerodynamic chin, at his hair falling forward like black water. At his nose that was, somehow, the sexiest goddamned nose in the world. The nose of a great emperor, avid for his gardens of night-blooming jasmine—

“Okay Edge, I give up. What are you doing?”

“Just trying to get a fan’s-eye view.”

“Oh Christ. I think you know what I look like on stage by now. Come on, bring me your sweet skinny body.”

It was hard not to simply obey, not to hand myself over to him entirely. But I wanted to see something through, no matter how ridiculous I felt. “I know what you look like from a collegial standpoint, Bono. But right now I want to be a fan. Maybe even a sycophant.”

Crooked grin. “I’ve always wanted sycophants.”

“I’m shocked to learn this. But you’re still wearing your boots, poor baby.” I reached up for his left foot and tugged. The boot hung on, then slid off abruptly and landed on my chest. Which made sense, really. His pointy little boot on my heart.

“Fans don’t normally get to take off my shoes, Edge.”

I pulled the right one off next; the sock came off with it. “I am a very, very lucky fan.”

“Oh, I see.” Wearing one sock happily enough, wiggling his toes.

“Yes. You spotted me in the crowd, and you liked me so much that you just sat down right in front of me, right at the edge of the stage. You sent the security lads on their way—”

“Goodness. You must have amazing tits.”

“If you like.”

“Sometimes, but at the moment I prefer a very pretty boy with unruly hair, and a face full of five o’clock shadow.”

“Go on.”

“Someone who’s just a bit fuckin’ dainty—”

“Fuck off, Bono.”

“You! You’ll do just fine.” Bono gave his hair an arrogant heavy metal flip, then leaned down to put his hand on my shoulder. “What’s your name, darling?”

“David.” Flat on my back, and too bewildered to come up with a good alias. I should have at least said _The_ David.

“That’s a pretty name, David. It means ‘beloved.’ Did you know that?”

Of course I knew. “No.”

“Well, it suits you.”

“Thank you, sir.”

“Aw, you’re blushing.” He chucked me under the chin, the little bastard. “Ever been backstage at a big show like this before?”

“Never.”

“Would you like to meet the rest of the band?”

“Frankly I couldn’t give a fuck about the rest of the band. I only do lead singers.”

“Oh!” I’d caught Bono off-guard at long last; his eyes were ultramarine saucers. Then he began to laugh. “Jesus, this is awful.”

“It is. It went a bit wrong.” I sat up. “I was thinking of a more old-fashioned rock’n’roll scenario. You, cake-walking along the edge of the stage, reaching out like Ziggy Stardust. ‘Give me your hands, you’re wonderful!’ and then catching the eye of this special—”

“—David.”

“Yeah, this special David.”

“I think we can still make this work, David.”

“How so?”

“Well, I’m not like those other rock stars, David. I’m very sensitive.”

I bit back a laugh. “Are you?”

“Yes. But the show is over now, dear. Your friends have all gone home. Whatever will you do?” Bono patted the bed. “Come up here and sit beside me.”

This time I did as I was told. Bono loomed over me, somehow contriving to make himself look—and feel—like a much larger man than he was. He hung his arm around my neck, and it was heavy. I felt the barest nudge of fear as he nipped my ear with his teeth. Mysterious ways, indeed.

“Do you like poetry, David?”

I ducked my head, swung my feet. “I don’t know…”

“Listen: _Last night I dreamed of you, Johnny, my lover / You'd the sun on one arm and the moon on the other / The sea it was blue and the grass it was green, / Every star rattled a round tambourine.”_

“Gosh.”

“That’s W.H. Auden, young man.”

“You are indeed a very sensitive rock star, sir.”

“And you are Johnny in the poem.” Dropping the artifice, Bono spoke softly once more. “The sun on one arm and the moon on the other, my Edge. And like Johnny, you do actually frown like thunder.”

“How,” I murmured against his mouth, “do you do these things that you do?”

“Ssh. No talk. Kiss.” He fell back among the pillows, pulling me with him. Clinging to my neck again, his proper size once more, a small beautiful man, soft and hard underneath me. Kissing me as if I were precious, as if I were beautiful.

“This is where I want to be, Bono. I swear it’s all I think about.”

“Me too, The Edge. All fucking day. Every day.”

“I _am_ your fan, you know.”

“And I’m yours.”

*

_I don’t know what is about you, Bono, that makes everything feel so sacred and so profane all at the same time, but it’s getting late and the light in the bedroom has turned rose-colored, like a cathedral at dusk, but the light is also exactly the same rose color as your lips, and your nipples, and the head of your cock, and how have I never noticed this before? The deep-petal color of these extremities of yours that beg to be looked at, touched, kissed, and I try to do all of these things at once and you laugh. What else have I gone through life not noticing? I try to tell you: “look, look at this, and this, and this, you’re a miracle,” and you laugh. And I know that no matter how many girls try to chain themselves to your leg, still you worry that you’re ungainly, not tall or lanky enough, maybe, for rock’n’roll, so I tell you that you don’t know how beautiful you are, and you laugh again, so I give up and I just kiss you, I just kiss you moonstruck, I kiss you quite insane, because I read poetry too—a very sensitive rock star, me—and sometimes I’m damned sure that I made you up inside my head._

__

__

_And the parts of you that aren’t rose-colored are like cinnamon sprinkled on cream, and your hair is as black as fucking Snow White’s, you princess, you bewildering piece of ass, with your rugby-player shoulders and your sweet round thighs. I don’t know how this happened to me and I don’t know what to do with you, only I do of course, strip us both naked and take you in my mouth, as deeply as I can, and if I could take you right down to my heart you know I would, and I tease you with a finger, setting off another fusillade of_ Edge _and_ Edge _and_ oh, _and oh Bono, my saltwater boy, my sweet seaside promenade, you brace your legs against my shoulders, holding me captive, but I’m not going anywhere, am I. I’m just coming again, unbelievably, just because you are too, you’re coming, and I am too, just because I’ve made you come, because I’ve made you sing like a fucking nightingale._

__

__

*

“The neighbors…”

“What about them.”

“The neighbors will think I’ve been torturing an actual woman in here.”

“Won’t they just. _‘Ah jaysis, he kept to himself. Sure, ‘tis always the quiet ones but.’”_

“Just the facts please, Mrs. O’Hanlon.”

Bono laughed and burrowed into my side, and I straightened the sheet and the blankets over us. Bliss. Quiet, timeless, dreamless bliss.

*

“What do you think they’re up to now?” I couldn’t help myself. Something about the others not knowing about us, carrying on as usual in our absence, made me feel smug. Even triumphant. _You fellas won’t believe what I just did to Bono…_

“I shudder to think,” Bono murmured into my chest. “Fucking up the order of the songs?”

“Accidentally erasing the whole thing.”

“Christ Edge, don’t even put that image in my mind.”

“Sorry. Forget I said it. It’s just funny that they think we’re off somewhere arguing, when we’re actually—”

“Fucking.”

“Well. _De facto_ fucking.”

Bono rose up on his elbow and fixed me with a lean and hungry look. “Listen Edge, have you given any consideration to actually fucking me?”

“…”

“I mean,” his solid little fingers dancing arpeggios on my ribcage, “wouldn’t you like to really fuck me, Edge?”

I felt my blood rushing southward, away from the speech centers of my brain. Again.

“Don’t tell me you haven’t thought about it, The Edge.”

“Of course I’ve thought about it, The Bono.”

He smiled, then lowered his head coyly, so that his hair fell over his eyes. “And when you think about, it do you—”

“Oh yes.”

“Then I’d like to think about you thinking about it.”

“That gives me even more to think about.”

“We are The Thinkers. Rodin should have sculpted us in marble.”

“ _Somebody_ should sculpt you in marble. You’re so…”

Rather than finish the thought, I pushed him onto his back, and held him down, and kissed his shoulders, one, then the other. Rubbed my face against his neck, his chest. His neck.

“Edge.”

“Right, right. The fucking.” I laughed; I couldn’t help it. “So. Is this something you’d really want?”

“You’re hilarious.”

“Why am I hilarious? I’m the least hilarious person you know.”

“Asking me if being fucked by you is something I’d want.” His fingers were working through my hair again; he dropped his voice to a whisper. “I mean, are you really asking if I would want you, inside me, hard, thrusting, hot, helpless with pleasure—”

“Jesus Bono, stop.”

“—pleasure that’s more intense than anything you’ve ever felt? You’re asking me if I would I want that?”

A different man would have rolled him over and fucked him then and there. But I was not that man. “What’s in it for you?”

“Pleasure that’s more intense than anything I’ve ever felt, of course.”

I would not, I would not, allow myself to wonder how he knew. If he knew. He was probably just talking. Talking was his area of expertise.

“You know, there’s this small issue of our having been relatively heterosexual up until now.”

“Life is changeable, The Edge. That’s what makes it different from death.”

“Really though, are you sure you—”

“Yes.”

“I mean, but are you sure?”

“Yes. Is there a big difference between fucking and everything else we’ve been up to?”

“For fuck’s sake Bono, don’t make me talk about this. You know how I am. Anyway, I think there is a difference. I mean, in terms of, you know, certain—”

“Don’t worry, Edge. I won’t get pregnant.”

“You’re impossible. I don’t even like you anymore.”

“Although I look about three months gone right now. Suppose I should do something about it before the tour.”

“Feckin’ eejit.” I rested my cheek on his tiny belly, luminous skin and soft dark hair. The scent of soap and sweat, and the scent of myself on him as well. I wished for one wild moment that I _could_ put a baby in there. Love seems to manifest in particular ways. It wants to plant evidence of itself. It wants to make itself known—

“I can hear you thinking, M’Edge.”

“I love when you call me that, Bono.”

“M’Edge.” He yawned then, big and loud, stretching himself top-to-toe, unselfconscious as a child. “Love you, M’Edge.”

I heard it. With a sense of relief that made my eyes smart. I didn’t say a word. I didn’t move. I stayed still and silent, my face on his belly while he stroked my hair with a delicacy I never knew he possessed.

I must have drifted off for a bit, because the next thing I heard was, “I’m so sorry Edge, but I do have to get home. You just sleep. I’ll get a cab.”

Bono was standing next to the bed, mostly dressed, buttoning up his shirt. It had grown quite dark outside.

I began to sit up. “No no, I’ll drive you.”

“Don’t be silly.” He knelt beside the bed, and kissed my forehead. “You’re so sleepy, baby. Don’t get up. We’ll find more time for this from now on, okay? Somehow.”

“Okay. Of course we will.”

“And maybe next time,” he said, moving his mouth close to my ear, “you’ll fuck me.”

“Mm. How about right now?”

“Sorry, I didn’t quite hear you.”

“I said yes. Yes I will, yes. And listen—I know this is all a little bit complicated, for you more than me, but I love you.”

“I love you as well, Edge. And also. And in addition.”

“Look, it’s not as if anything terrible will happen if you just say ‘you too,’ sweetheart.”

Bono laughed, stood up, tucked in his shirt, patted his pockets. An upstanding guy on his way home from work. To his family. “Get some sleep, M’Edge.”

I obeyed him, of course. In fact, I slept longer and deeper that night than I had in nearly a month.

When I woke up the room was filled with sunlight and birdsong, and I had the feeling that when I got to the studio later that day, I would be quite loquacious. Voluble, even. And not saturnine at all.


End file.
